Wednesday, 17 April 2013: Wednesday morning, we had a tour of the National Opera House of Hungary. It was such an amazing tour and building! Fun fact: when the opera house originally opened, it had one of the first “air conditioning” systems in Europe, had the most advanced opera scenery system in the world, and was created by only Hungarian workers.

After the House of Terror, we ventured to lunch and Heroes Square. At Heroes Square, we decided to visit the Museum of Fine Arts, where I was delighted to see works by some of my favorite artists, including: Rembrandt, Rubens, Monet, Durer, Corot, Pissarro and many more.

After our museum exploration for the day, we grabbed tea at a cafe across the street, re-boosted our energy and walked toward home, stopping at one of the best gift shops in Budapest. That evening we went out for some delicious pizza and then ventured to the original “ruin bar,” Szimpla Kert for a night out. Szimpla Kert is definitely a place to add to a list when visiting Budapest–it was so cool!

Thursday, 18 April 2013: My last day in Budapest was a more relaxed adventure, but still very fun! We started the day off by purchasing tickets to go to Athens this summer, which is going to be absolutely awesome! After our flights were purchased, we headed through Budapest to the Great Market Hall to see what cool local things we could find. We definitely struck gold on souvenirs! I got an absolutely beautiful hand-made lace table runner (and I cannot begin to tell anyone HOW excited I am about my purchase–it’s awesome!). We then ate lunch at some of the local stalls in the market hall–I had the best goose leg a girl could ask for!

After we finished our purchases at the market hall, we headed to the National Museum of Hungary, where we saw items owned by the Hapsburgs (I might have been overly excited about that), learned about the liberation of Hungary from the Turks in the 1700s, and we saw the Coronation Mantle (which was really cool since we saw the crown at Parliament a few days before!).

After the museum, we went to the best gelato place in Budapest, (I would agree with that statement) Gelarto Rosa, and had gelato that was shaped like a rose (yes, they are THAT creative). It was absolutely amazing and delicious.

Then we headed back to the hostel so I could collect my things, and I headed off to the airport to catch a flight to London and then to the greatest place on earth, Texas.